Why am still here working with people who are still searching for the solution on problems about very basic needs like poor sanitation brought about by the absence of water system and presence of treatable water based diseases in poor communities and still women and children ”dying” of treatable diseases because of misinformation on reproductive health amidst the chaos on hundred million dollar kickbacks in the national level … its insanity …
The culture of bandwagon and utang na loob
Before I wrote this article, I extracted the newspaper clippings to refresh my memory about the NBN ZTE scandal exposed by journalist Jarius Bondoc in a series of articles over a national daily which I patiently filed to keep my sense alive while taking the pre bar review in my place then in Mandaluyong . The issues then were lighter like “do we really need a broadband” (Philippine Star, June 12, 2007), “but first, where is the ZTE contract” (PS June 13, 2007) etc…as compared to current turns of events clearly pictured by the investigations being conducted by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.
Light, Moderate, Grave Greed are the same as defined in a separate article (Enron Prosecutor addresses RP counterparts on corruption, PDI June 29, 2007) by Cliff Stricklin, one of the US prosecutors involved in the landmark Enron case. He said GREED “ is something that consumes a person when money ceases to be a mere means of acquiring material possessions but becomes “a measuring stick of success”. I was thirteen years old when rosaries, flowers and image of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ defeated the armored tanks, high powered weapons and men in camouflage along EDSA. Miles away from the place, the dramatic images of those events in 1986 were brought to real life in our home through the power of broadcast media. Full of horrible stories about martial law regime, I innocently followed the events by buying newspapers and books ( i still keep them intact) to reconcile what has been shared both at home and in school.
I grew up believing with pride that the spontaneous and magical events in EDSA in February 1986 can bring progress and prosperity in this country. Until People Power was made as a constitutional way of objecting the flaws of governance to validate the series of EDSAs in the years to come.
Why should we go out of the Philippines and provide our services in foreign lands when there are so many things to be done at home” was the very common line among my friends/contemporaries. And so we did. We served in the government. Many seek and were elected to government positions defying the odds against the system of traditional politicians and politicking notwithstanding their own vulnerabilities and limitations. I myself choose the technical side organizing communities and became the messenger of good governance and people participation and empowerment.
The young vice mayor of the town where I am assigned once shared during one of our sentimental conversations that “Our existence in public service is not permanent and so are we. We can only contribute minimal programs that will transcend the generations to come and can contribute progress in this country. This limited accomplishments can only be within our lifetime, within our reach and within our means”.
As the nation prepares to depose yet another leader in the streets, I was in the mountains among communities of men and women along with other government workers facilitating practical guides on legal and administrative approaches on barangay government development. Operating in the grassroots levels, the barangay government serves as the primary planning and implementing units of government policies and programs in the community. Power in the hands of the people is the idea. Barangays are constitutionally enclothed with the capacity to generate their own income and define and identify their own needs and “illnesses” and answer such according to their own means and terms.
However as the nation argue and lament yet again another scandal this time involving unforgivable hundreds of millions of dollars kickbacks out of foreign funded government projects, the people in the communities are still in the state of suffering from treatable water based diseases, absence of water system and poor maintenance of reproductive health; they are still in search for the solution for very basic commodities and needs… toilet bowls, farm to market roads, poor sanitation, nebulizers, blood pressure apparatus, over the counter medicines, malnourishment etc.. Endless basic problems.
An assuming messiah who uses arrogant intellect in public service coordinated with me for the distribution of Manuals on Barangay Governance she personally secured from the office of Sen. Francis Pangilinan. A simple yet very useful reading material that can be utilized by barangay officials all throughout their three years term (unless extended by Congress). However, it has very limited copy good only for the seventy four barangays am attending and can only be secured one copy per barangay. I could only create comic jokes out of the situation if only to appease myself.
The Constitution provides a legal way to remove a president, that is through impeachment citing the line “we should be governed by the rules of law not by the rules of the emotions and anger”. But it did not work with former President Estrada. He did not leave Malacanang through a decision by a duly constituted legal body. So with the late President Marcos. Will it work for PGMA? Will she be impeached? Many are in doubt considering the current political set up we all know. What’s is wrong then with the system? What is wrong then with our institutions? She owed her presidency to other institutions, primarily the church upon which huge number of people were mobilized to go out in the streets to express their discontentment. PGMA is in owed to many. I guess the reason why she could not take charge on many issues among which women concerns? On reproductive health, on women’s right to information and women’s right to decide on those information? (GMAs legacy may include more mothers put at risk, Jaileen F. Jimeno, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism). So with tax evaders and those who are completely not paying or contributing any tax at all. As well as those who are corrupting the people’s money and the people’s mind.
To whom shall the next president’s (in case people power succeeds to remove Mrs. Arroyo) mandate be? The church, the opposition, the business sector? the landowners and oligarchs? the impoverished majority?What conditions and limitations are at stake?
While it is true that the fate of a nation cannot be achieved overnight, why is it taking us so long then. A friend has the answer.. “ the task is multi sectoral but the irony is we only do something when there’s a sensational something to protest”. The Filipino culture of bandwagon of issues can put anybody in and out of Malacanang (death of Ninoy Aquino and massive cheating during the Snap elections for Marcos, Jose Velarde for Estrada and NBN ZTE deal for Arroyo notwithstanding the many less sensational allegations yet if true are equally mass decaying anomalies in all administrations).
It’s been more than a decade yet our same line did not fade, now with a different angle.
Corruption and lies are not only in politics. They are everywhere.. in business, in the church, in the government and in any organized hierarchical institution. It is a blatant truth that everybody wants to evade. I am afraid this country will get stocked in the middle of the ocean surrounded by developed and developing communities always waiting for a hero to trigger and lead us out of the nightmares of a forsaken land.
Walt Whitman
“You are nothing but an infinitesimal combination of earth’s rocks, water and air;
these are two billion years of evolutionary explorations,
new trials, new combinations, new forms of life…
BEAUTY COMES IN KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU CAME AND WHY YOU BE, EARTH CHILD”.
What tomorrow brings…
Tomorrow and weeks after, i will join again some local government claimers of expertise (am not) for the seminar of newly elected barangay officials in five localities.. I have been in this “racket” for the past nine years. Maybe, in some ways, this activity transferred skills and knowledge to local politicians to become self reliant and efficient agents and implementors of government programs and services in the local level . i still want to convince myself that such move in the grassroots is still relevant and may contribute changes in the political system of this country, if only to make a logical sense to what’s going on and why am still here. . .
Until then. . .
Scary Nights
Like a compass searching for the correct direction to anchor, I transferred from one place to another during the prebar review. My first destination is the most notable. I stayed in the 8th floor of a ten storey building. It was a comfortable place to study, relax, and ponder my preparations for September. Aware that no one from other regions would stay with me in that floor, I settled myself before I took the bus to Manila that I will be on my own in that place for the next six months, and so I thought.
I first checked the fire escape, exit doors, fire extinguisher, hidden cameras (if any, am glad there’s none) the sprinkles (if it’s working) and the kitchen. I bought a flash light, a lighter, and enough batteries, and candles. Sadly there was no trunk line or intercom in the hostel rooms. All offices have different telephone lines i guess. (I didn’t want to know the reason anymore. It is a government property though). Elevator is closed as well during nighttime except for my three requests during my stay. A breast cancer patient from Cagayan de Oro stayed in another room only during day time.
i know i was in a safe place but still i did not last more than three days. I succumbed to my own fragility. I struggled to overcome each night that i think could have endangered or worse end dear life. My cell phone and my old teargas, (am not even sure if t’was still effective that time. i tried it only to a cockroach weeks before) were the company of my pillows. Anything could have happened to me without anybody to turn to the quickest possible time. Nobody could possibly hear me even if i scream the fullest force of my lungs.
The building is crowded during daytime, but I would be the lone occupant when night time comes except for the guards who stay at the ground floor.
It was a very special privilege from my agency that I let go without any regret notwithstanding the amenities i could have enjoyed. Looking back, I can already laugh but still with hollow blocks in my chest each moment i think of each tick of the clock i counted until the next morning comes and each step i imagined coming near me in the middle of the night. I shared it to my friends, they could only laugh as well. Same question… how did I manage it. Another stubborn decision which I thought I could easily carry.
Sometimes, struggle for self reliance and autonomy has a price.
It may only be three but they are the weirdiest, scariest, creepiest nights so far that could last a long time in my memory.
Tia Meng (August 17, 2007)
Am sharing a room with an eighty one year old lady since I transferred here in Paco a couple of weeks ago. I have been enjoying meals and sleeping time with all her sharing of intricate yet colorful stories from the time of Japanese occupation in the Philippines until she traveled and lived in Japan for a long time to be with her daughter who is married to a Japanese national (that would be more or less sixty years).
It could have been dull moments between law books and anxiety while preparing for the bar exams if not for her comic experiences.
She is fondly called Tia Meng. She does household chores for her nephew. She was expecting to do service for me too, as manifested by her actions (which she need not do) when I first dropped my traveling bar. She prepared the study table, arranged the room in accordance with what she perceived to be my taste as manifested by her decorations and provided enough space for my things and my sleeping area including the pillow case and the mattress (even she knows I have my own) which must have been finely selected and kept to be used only during special occasions.. During meal time she would knock at my door gently to tell me that the table is ready… so ready that there is already rice in my plate.
I felt so humbled and so loved in as much as I have always been an uncompromising person who dislikes attachment especially during difficult times. I yield to the ways of keeping.
She could have been one of those I leave behind to eat the dust when I feel uncomfortable with lousy and cheap stories about material things, fanaticism of doctrinal dogmas and make believe fantasies but I stuck on when she showed me her worldly possessions… all are gifts from the people she loves most… her daughters. She did not show me anything she bought for herself from her earnings. All she proudly displayed was an embroidered pillow case she painstakingly created herself bearing the names of her two daughters with the symbol of a heart in between. I asked her where they are now and why she is living and spending her energy with a different family. She calmly answered “they already have their own family”.
“Children are more properly seen as their mother’s creations, rather than their fathers. It is also because, more than anyone else, it is mothers who gaze at the faces of their young in total contemplation and prayerful hopefulness”, is an excerpt from Randy David’s essay on Mothers which could be the most intimate rationale I could find why Nanay Meng despite physical separation from her daughters sends a message of compassion that resonates even in the hardest heart of a stranger.
“I don’t want you to serve me nanay, I am stronger than you”, I told her many times with a powerful force in my voice. And so I did. I cooked my own recipes.. and she liked them. I wouldn’t allow her to wash the utensils I used except on certain circumstances. I wanted her to feel comfortable and free during my stay at least… and so she became.
I do not intend to fill some vacuum despite that it is what I feel with what she is doing with me, or to appease the conscience or be saved and go to heaven by doing some charitable work. I only do not succumb to the idea of replacing the strength and power of another being by making it appear that I can do it for them. Of course I can, but I will not because of my strong belief that each have his or her own way and purpose to accomplish that should not be subjugated in the form of more positive words—charity, kindness, piety.
But I could not stay long. My time is not mine to keep. I have to move on, and so she must too. But where? She is eighty one years old.
I write this line with a sad heart… I might not see her again… I have to convince myself … it is still eighty one fruitful years.
